I really don’t have a clue how Yamaha thinks it’s going to compete in the personal audio player/workout market with its new product, the BODiBEAT. The concept, a personal audio player that automatically syncs the rhythm of your tunes to the rhythm of your workout, is cool. The execution, a 512MB armband with proprietary headphones/ear-clip heart rate monitor, is not. Adding to the lameness is the proprietary desktop software, BODiBEAT Station, used to categorize your 512MB of tunes by beats per minute (BPM) for use in your workouts.

“The world’s first music player that selects songs to match the pace of the user’s workout, it automatically syncs music selections with the steps of the user’s walk or run. A total workout tracking and personal music solution, BODiBEAT redefines the capabilities of portable music players, and makes exercising more fun than ever before. “

Yeah, right. Perhaps if Yamaha had brought this product to market five or seven years ago, it would be worth some consideration. As it stands now, I can’t believe they’ve released this product with a straight face. Seriously, head over to NewEgg and grab a 1GB music player for about $40. Then go over to JogTunes or Google and grab yourself some tunes that match a nice, comfortable pace. Already have an iPod Nano? Then just grab the Nike+ Sport kit and some BPM’d tunes. Seriously, any combination of music player plus music you already like has got to be better than dropping $299 on this thing.

UPDATE: AppleInsider says that the leaked screenshots are fakes. Are the screenshots the real deal or are they the result of a hopeful photoshopper? We report, you decide.

The Nike+ iPhone we’ve all been waiting for may now be one step closer to reality. Leaked screenshots are showing up allovertheweb this morning, all of them seeming to come from the french blog iPhon.fr. Gizmodo has this to say:

From what we can skim, Nike+ users will get all of the nifty performance graphs right on the phone (before this stuff was available on the web only). But the biggest improvement over the old Nike system may be Google Maps support.

Rumor has it that we’ll see the new functionality coming sometime in September. I’m excited, but I’m not holding my breath. What have you guys heard? Let us know in the comments.

With the release of the 3G iPhone last month, developers have been frantically producing applications for the public, so it was only a matter of time before a decent running application came along that utilizes the GPS capabilities of the iPhone. RunKeeper is an application currently in development that will allow iPhone runners to track speed, pace, running history, and also has the ability to map runs using GPS. If you are an iPhone owner you might want to hold off on any secondary GPS device until RunKeeper is released. View a video preview on the official RunKeeper Web site, or keep tabs on the latest news via the RunKeeper blog.

Keep an eye out for new Nike footwear when the 2008 Olympic games kicks off this weekend in Beijing. The Nike Flywire running shoe has been supplied to the US track and field team and weighs in at an incredibly light 96.3g per pair. An even lighter version known as the Zoom Victory Spikes weighs just 90.7g and has been specially developed for middle distance runners (800m). Hopefully the shoe will play a part in the success of the US athletes Olympic mission, but either way, the new shoes, which were inspired by the same material that suspension bridge cables/wire use, will be available to the public in the fall.